Joan Burton Proposing Employers to pay for sick leave!!!

HellFireClub

You couldn't make it up!!!

Employers will have to pay the first four weeks of their staff’s sick pay under proposals drawn up by Minister for Social Protection Joan Burton to shave €150 million off her budget.
Ms Burton is proposing to transfer responsibility for paying sick pay from the Department of Social Protection to individual employers in the first month of illness, The Irish Times understands.
The plan, which would make a substantial inroad into the approximately €700 million in cuts Ms Burton has to make in next month’s budget, is likely to be strongly opposed by employers’ groups.
It was one of a number of cost-saving measures affecting social welfare which were discussed at a special pre-budget meeting of Ministers yesterday. The proposal would take at least a year to get up and running but is projected to save the exchequer €150 million in 2013.
Ms Burton argues that the current system under which the State picks up the tab for most employee sickness is an anomaly, and differs sharply from the practice in many other countries.
In preparation for the December budget, the Cabinet yesterday devoted a special meeting to discuss Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Brendan Howlin’s wide-ranging proposals for reform in the public service.
It is understood that discussion during the seven-hour meeting focused on proposals to reduce the number of State agencies and quangos. Early plans suggested some 102 bodies should be axed or merged, but the number has since been reduced to under 50.
Mr Howlin is also expected to outline his proposals for reduction in public sector numbers on Thursday. One measure is expected to set new levels of annual leave for all existing staff across the public service, ranging from a minimum of 22 days and a maximum of 32.
Mr Howlin is also expected to outline his proposals for reduction in public sector numbers on Thursday. The Government’s target of reducing numbers to 302,000 for 2011 will be easily surpassed, a Government source said yesterday. A year-by-year timeline of reducing numbers by as many as 25,000 by 2015 will also be disclosed, as will details of the strategy for reforming shared services, e-Government; procurement and expenditure reform.
The new measures on holidays being proposed by Mr Howlin’s department will see some staff gain additional days off, many more could lose out. Sources suggested that staff who lose leave arrangements under the plan may be offered a one-off compensation arrangement. This could possibly be 1½ times the level of leave lost.


http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2011/1115/breaking9.html

HellFireClub

So now there is a health levy, employers PRSI, a universal social charge, income tax, employees PRSI, but despite all this TAX, when you need social protection now, it'll be your employers responsibility to pay for this, is this minister on drugs or something?!?!?!?!?!?

headmaster

As an employer, if this is brought in, I will cease to employ people. M/s Burton has no idea how impossibly difficult it is to be an employer right now, if she brings in this legislation, she WILL find out very quickly and so will a lot of workers.

Swampy

That woman is an idiot.

HellFireClub

headmaster wrote: »

As an employer, if this is brought in, I will cease to employ people. M/s Burton has no idea how impossibly difficult it is to be an employer right now, if she brings in this legislation, she WILL find out very quickly and so will a lot of workers.

A wiser act on her part would be to just remove the sick leave support that is currently there, so if you are on short term sick leave, there will be no state support available, something that I find to be disgusting and reprehensible, given all the separate contributions that are made by both the employee and the employer under the tax headings I mentioned in my OP.

But to say that if an employee is on sick leave, it will now be the employers problem to pay them?!?!?!? No problem, but any chance we can keep the employers PRSI or the universal social charge to cover the cost of it?!?!?

This is why I would never in my life vote for Labour/Union candidate, they simply haven't a clue what it is like to run a business, the whole mentality is one of take take take and no concept of the bottom line or who is paying for it.

I'd say when some of our multinational brethern get to talk about development this over lunch, you'll see her changing her mind on this rediculous proposal by the end of the day.

TheCostumeShop.ie: Ronan

This is completely unpractical and would be the equilivant of a death threat to the suffering SME sector. What would happen is it would create an bigger industry in insurance against the new risk (which would then get heavily taxed) and more people would switch to using contractors, creating a government incentive like how temp agencies profit from the legal requirements if you put temps on our books vs bring them in externally.

neris

So we as employers pay a monthly salary to someone who could be sick, we then also pay the taxes for that employee and then we have to pay employers prsi for the pleasure of employing them even if they dont work. Cutting out any govt responsibility and in the meantime they save a whack in sick claims and then cream in the taxes for the employee. Its called shafting and giving a big F you to employers.

We have already had 3 people this year on long term sick leave and I would have been sick to have had to pay the 3 the best part of €6k becuase 2 of the sick cases I dont genuinely belive to be true and the 3rd could have been back to work in a matter of days. People on social welfare with medical cards, rent allowances, child payments etc have it so easy and they have the cheek to whinge that their payments wont be paid til their kids are 14. The whole labour/union thing is a scam and FGs biggest cock up was going into govt with them.

tdsarea...

Email I sent to Joan...if I get a response I will post.

---

To: joan.burton@oir.ie
Subject: Request information on idiotic proposal
Date: Tue, 15 Nov 2011 16:34:46 +0000

.ExternalClass .ecxhmmessage p { padding: 0px; }.ExternalClass body.ecxhmmessage { font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma; } Dear Ms. Burton,

I am very angered to read your governments proposal this morning about Employers covering 1st 4 weeks pay.

Why do we pay Employers PRSI?????

I was planning to start a business in January from the redundancy I am about to be paid.... and hire two staff. I went looking for grant...nothing...zero....this government is anti-business not pro-jobs!!!!

...And now I read this rubbish. Are all you government ministers from outerspace?

I can categorically tell you that if this rubbish is brought in I will be starting a business... but it will be in the UK. You will lose the income tax I currently pay, you will lose the prospect of me taking two people out of the dole queue, you will lose my potential employers PRSI and you will gain another person unable to pay their mortgage (total annual loss of c.€70,000)! Are you trying to create jobs or destroy the country? Home grown jobs are what is required to build this country....multinationals are here for tax breaks and we all know that!

I have spoken to many SME owners today and you are commiting insanity with this proposal.

Are you a moran?

You should resign as a citizen of Ireland immediately....and then the Dail.

Yours angerly,

Riskymove

You couldn't make it up!!!

This is completely unpractical and would be the equilivant of a death threat to the suffering SME sector

That woman is an idiot.

How do all the businesses in the UK, Holland etc manage to survive?

they have a far more burdensome obligation than what is proposed

Owen

More wisdom from the Human Vuvuzela aka Joan Burton.

HellFireClub

In fairness, Joan has done us all a favour today, because she has highlighted the actual problem with our economy, which is that the attitude to job creation and the sustaining of jobs in this state, is now so utterly dysfunctional and downright poisonous, so absolutely misunderstood, by the government of this state, that nobody should be the slightest bit surprised or shocked now, that we are still haemorraging jobs every week and every month and have over 450,000 people long term unemployed now.

TheCostumeShop.ie: Ronan

tdsarea... wrote: »

Are you a moran?

You should resign as a citizen of Ireland immediately....and then the Dail.

While we're all annoyed at the lack of logic to the situation, do you really think a letter calling her a Moran is going to be taken seriously and replied to? Do you honestly expect her to resign based on your recommendation :rolleyes:. I'm really not sure why you bothered. You're only a penny short of using the "I pay your wages" line.

tdsarea...

No you're right she wont answer....but at least it took my blood pressure down slightly.

....I knew there was one line I forgot alright...oh well I'll use it next time.

anymore

headmaster wrote: »

As an employer, if this is brought in, I will cease to employ people. M/s Burton has no idea how impossibly difficult it is to be an employer right now, if she brings in this legislation, she WILL find out very quickly and so will a lot of workers.

I sympathise - ten years ago and more I did have some part time employees but wont dream of employing anyone now due to changed legislative environment !
She is trying to make the private sctor into something akin to the Public Sector. Whatever happened to being competitive !
Insanity.

HellFireClub

TheCostumeShop.ie: Ronan wrote: »

While we're all annoyed at the lack of logic to the situation, do you really think a letter calling her a Moran is going to be taken seriously and replied to? Do you honestly expect her to resign based on your recommendation :rolleyes:. I'm really not sure why you bothered. You're only a penny short of using the "I pay your wages" line.

In fairness the proposal is so completely stupid that it is hard to think of how to address the person promoting it.

These kind of woodenheaded and completely irrational proposals, they must surely instill a rapid sense of fear and panic into any person trying to run a small business at the moment. You'd hear an idea like this and wonder what on earth is she going to propose next???

By all means cut the entitlement to sick pay through the Dept. of Social Protection, but Jesus Christ, trying to then just dispense with and then push that responsibility onto a small business operation, but yet expecting to keep all the tax that the employer collects, that is meant to be paying for state benefits like sick leave and entitlements like that, in the current environment, is she on drugs???

mikom

tdsarea... wrote: »

Email I sent to Joan...if I get a response I will post.

To: joan.burton@oir.ie
Subject: Request information on idiotic proposal
Date: Tue, 15 Nov 2011 16:34:46 +0000



Are you a moran?

tdsarea...

HellFireClub wrote: »

...is she on drugs???

Yes she is.... and she should pass them around ...because that's the only way we could possibly see where she is coming from.... if we were all off our face together

HellFireClub

Our Minister for Social Protection must be seriously seriously short of ideas, one month before budget day, to be coming out with absolutely and utterly destructive ideas like this one.

I wouldn't mind but how much is absence in the public sector costing the country every year, with the absence rate running at an average rate within the Irish Civil Service of 11.3 days absence for the year 2009. More than twice the well accepted private sector average rate of absence of 6 days a year.

If she wants to start looking at where the sick leave problem is, maybe she needs to start in her own building and get her own house in order before coming to the private sector trying to screw small business people...

Sources:

http://audgen.gov.ie/documents/vfmreports/69_Managing_Sickness_Absences.pdf

http://www.finfacts.ie/irishfinancenews/article_1022988.shtml

seamus

It depends on the implementation.

A direct copy from the current regime would mean that the most an employer would have to pay an individual in sick pay would be €750, since this is roughly a month's sick benefit, minus the first three days (cos you're not entitled to it).

Employers would also be entitled to disqualify employees from sickness benefit on the basis of time served or minimum numbers of working hours.


If it was operated in a reasonable way where:

- Employers don't have to pay extra benefit for dependents
- Employers don't pay the first month of every illness, they pay a maximum of 20 days sick benefit in any given year
- Employers do not have to pay the first three days of any illness
- They are entitled to not pay sick leave (or pay a very reduced rate) to staff with less than 12 months service, or less than 20 hours a week employment.

Then it would seem like a relatively reasonable move.

TheCostumeShop.ie: Ronan

In theory maybe Seamus. But try being an SME employer when several members of staff don't show up for work on a Monday and your contractually obliged to still preform their work but can't insist other employees do any extra hours, the government have made it excessively difficult to get people off the dole for 2/3 days to cover their work even though they want to work. And you don't know if they will be out for a day or a month, then they can come back anytime they like and you let the replacement go. Two days later they are sick again and the cycle repeats.

Talk about a bottle neck. There's plenty of good ways to get money into the system - Like a website that self manages social welfare for those who get the opportunity to temporarily contribute and pay some taxes, without wanting to suffer if they can't sign back on in time.

goose2005

Ah sure all employers are bourgeois oppressors of the working classes; you'll just have to melt down one of your solid gold Ferraris.

Riskymove

TheCostumeShop.ie: Ronan wrote: »

In theory maybe Seamus. But try being an SME employer when several members of staff don't show up for work on a Monday and your contractually obliged to still preform their work

I have heard this issue mentioned a few times since yesterday

The system proposed has absolutely nothing to do with occassional sick leave like that

its about longer-term absence...you have to be out for at least 3 days currently to claim it.

betonit

can an employer have a no sick pay policy or clause.... out of interest

EIREHotspur

And people are surprised that stupid ideas like this are coming from this woman because....??

To think of all the people who voted her and the the rest of them in thought we were going to get better then what was there before is laughable.

I hate that phrase "Jobs initiative"....no Government has made it easier to start a business and emply people....red tape puts a lot off and this hair brained scheme adds the death knell to a lot more.

Joan is one person who should be told to smile less, not more.
She gives me the heebie jeebies.

GoneShootin

@betonit Once statutory obligations are met then an employer is under no other obligation to provide sick leave covpay, though many do out of sheer goodwill. I'm not sure how much longer SME's will support it though!

First line of this page

http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/employment/employment_rights_and_conditions/leave_and_holidays/sick_leave.html

Riskymove

betonit wrote: »

can an employer have a no sick pay policy or clause.... out of interest

during discussions on the proposals, it was said that only 30% of SMEs pay sick leave

Bandara

Riskymove wrote: »

I have heard this issue mentioned a few times since yesterday

The system proposed has absolutely nothing to do with occassional sick leave like that

its about longer-term absence...you have to be out for at least 3 days currently to claim it.

yes so someone who was going to be out for 2 days will now stay out an extra one, as to get the payment off the employer is far easier than having to apply to the welfare

ssbob

Hammertime wrote: »

yes so someone who was going to be out for 2 days will now stay out an extra one, as to get the payment off the employer is far easier than having to apply to the welfare

Thats not right because to do that you have to get a doctors cert which costs €50, for the first week out of work you would only be entitled to €75.20 (€188/5*2), and no pay from your job which is a loss of €337.35(Min wage * 39).

While I do not agree with the proposal, I think there are a lot of misguided posts about this.

While this proposal will save the Dept of social welfare €150m, it will end up costing all other public sector departments more so in effect, the saving of €150m could be quite a lot less, personally I think the govt is drip feeding info like this to see how it is received, I wouldn't be surprised if a lesser form of this comes in in the budget ie. 2 weeks burden on employers.

Bandara

ssbob wrote: »

Thats not right because to do that you have to get a doctors cert which costs €50, for the first week out of work you would only be entitled to €75.20 (€188/5*2), and no pay from your job which is a loss of €337.35(Min wage * 39).

While I do not agree with the proposal, I think there are a lot of misguided posts about this.

While this proposal will save the Dept of social welfare €150m, it will end up costing all other public sector departments more so in effect, the saving of €150m could be quite a lot less, personally I think the govt is drip feeding info like this to see how it is received, I wouldn't be surprised if a lesser form of this comes in in the budget ie. 2 weeks burden on employers.

fair point, accepted.

Riskymove

Hammertime wrote: »

yes so someone who was going to be out for 2 days will now stay out an extra one, as to get the payment off the employer is far easier than having to apply to the welfare

again, as I understand it, there is no obligation to pay sick leave

seamus

ssbob wrote: »

I think the govt is drip feeding info like this to see how it is received,

They've been doing this at least for the last five years; A month before the budget they "leak" various budget proposals being put forward to see if anyone bites and goes nuts, and then they review it and put in a much less severe provision so that people think they've gotten away with it.

anymore

seamus wrote: »

It depends on the implementation.

A direct copy from the current regime would mean that the most an employer would have to pay an individual in sick pay would be €750, since this is roughly a month's sick benefit, minus the first three days (cos you're not entitled to it).

Employers would also be entitled to disqualify employees from sickness benefit on the basis of time served or minimum numbers of working hours.


If it was operated in a reasonable way where:

- Employers don't have to pay extra benefit for dependents
- Employers don't pay the first month of every illness, they pay a maximum of 20 days sick benefit in any given year
- Employers do not have to pay the first three days of any illness
- They are entitled to not pay sick leave (or pay a very reduced rate) to staff with less than 12 months service, or less than 20 hours a week employment.

Then it would seem like a relatively reasonable move.

Why on earth would an employer have to pay anything at all in relation to an emlpoyees sickness ? It is complete lunancy.
Do people not realise we are now comoeting for jobs with the BRIC countries and not with other 'Socialist Utopia' countries ?
Let me put it this way, should I be able to claim from my accountants, solcitors and other people I have some kind of contractual relationship with for my illnesses ?

seamus

anymore wrote: »

Why on earth would an employer have to pay anything at all in relation to an emlpoyees sickness?

Basically because the money has to come from somewhere. If it's coming from social welfare, then it's paid for through employer's PRSI. If sick pay is an issue, then they either raise employer's PRSI or they ask employers to pay it.

In reality, it's a question of whether we want to adopt the European socialist model where there's a much more symbiotic relationship between employers and employees, or the US model where employees are "resources" and employers are "paychecks".

Up to now we've been pretty good at straddling the line, but it's inevitable that we would choose one way or the other. Given that most of our employment law is strongly enforced/influenced by Europe, it's more likely that we will take that route of greater employee rights, shorter working hours, and so forth.

The wisdom of continuing to move towards that model in a time when we should be making easier to employ people and not harder is something to be questioned.

We are of course dab hands at taking with one hand and giving with the other. If this came in I wouldn't be surprised if they set it up so that any cost of hiring a replacement to cover the employee while on sick leave will be specially exempted from employer's PRSI or be tax-deductable.

So the Dept. of Social welfare reports a drop of €150m in costs, while Revenue are forced to concede a drop of €150m in tax take.

TheCostumeShop.ie: Ronan

seamus wrote: »

Basically because the money has to come from somewhere. If it's coming from social welfare, then it's paid for through employer's PRSI. If sick pay is an issue, then they either raise employer's PRSI or they ask employers to pay it.

This is silly logic in my opinion. As an employer / business owner I am not entitle to any welfare payments, as such I have health insurance to cover the possibility of getting sick and the medical bills, I have loss of income insurance incase I do get sick. Incase I die early I pay for Keyman Insurance to make sure my staff are protected and the companies will survive in my absense.

In an employees case I pay PRSI and other taxes to insure against them becoming sick and requiring long periods of time off work.

The issue is competitiveness. In this new economy some businesses owners can base their company anywhere and hire staff located anywhere in the world. By making Ireland even more uncompetitive to run a business in, people like myself will just move the jobs abroad to our other international offices or re-locate all together.

I believe by making the employer more responsible for these expenses they will either decrease employing as many, drop the wages in response or move the jobs abroad. Either way, the government will see a negative income from the move and the person who suffers the most will be the average Irish person. Be it in increased prices to cover increased costs for products and services, less jobs, lower wages or probably all three.

Lastly, spare a thought to those who do have health issues. If the government make it difficult for businesses to have staff on their books with health issues, then you can be sure that companies will do their best to cut down that expense by not hiring people who have a history of illness or conditions which may need them to take sick leave in the future. So if your father had a disease that could be hereditary, you may be unfairly passed over for a job or promotion due to this increased pressure.

anymore

TheCostumeShop.ie: Ronan wrote: »

This is silly logic in my opinion. As an employer / business owner I am not entitle to any welfare payments, as such I have health insurance to cover the possibility of getting sick and the medical bills, I have loss of income insurance incase I do get sick. Incase I die early I pay for Keyman Insurance to make sure my staff are protected and the companies will survive in my absense.

In an employees case I pay PRSI and other taxes to insure against them becoming sick and requiring long periods of time off work.

The issue is competitiveness. In this new economy some businesses owners can base their company anywhere and hire staff located anywhere in the world. By making Ireland even more uncompetitive to run a business in, people like myself will just move the jobs abroad to our other international offices or re-locate all together.

I believe by making the employer more responsible for these expenses they will either decrease employing as many, drop the wages in response or move the jobs abroad. Either way, the government will see a negative income from the move and the person who suffers the most will be the average Irish person. Be it in increased prices to cover increased costs for products and services, less jobs, lower wages or probably all three.

Lastly, spare a thought to those who do have health issues. If the government make it difficult for businesses to have staff on their books with health issues, then you can be sure that companies will do their best to cut down that expense by not hiring people who have a history of illness or conditions which may need them to take sick leave in the future. So if your father had a disease that could be hereditary, you may be unfairly passed over for a job or promotion due to this increased pressure.

very good reply - what more needs to be said ? The reality is that the \Irish people have shown again and again that they want a low tax, at least realtively low tax, economy/state and yet we then have to see this type of lunatic Alice in Wonderland suggestion coming from the Smoked salmon Soicalist party ! If they keep on with this nonsense, we may as well rebrand the country ' Greece 2'.

betonit

Riskymove wrote: »

again, as I understand it, there is no obligation to pay sick leave

whats the problem so...

drunkmonkey

betonit wrote: »

whats the problem so...

I asked the question in legal yesterday, seems once it's put into law, it's the law and you have to abide by it the same as health & safety.

If you've a good profitable well established business and can afford to pay it for staff well then ok but if your like a lot of us with 10 or under staff you may as well close the doors or fire them all and offer to take them back as contractors.

If an employee can take 4 weeks sick pay a year, there going to end up sick for 4 week a year along with 20 odd days holidays. This is complete bull**** from a public servant who has no idea what it's like to start, run and manage a small business. Who in the hell does she think small business people hire, teachers?

Someone said it earlier, tidy up your own house first you auld bat and then come and talk to business but in the mean time feck off Joan and help us create jobs not destroy them.

Christ I hate our politicians, burn them all!!!!!

betonit

drunkmonkey wrote: »

I asked the question in legal yesterday, seems once it's put into law, it's the law and you have to abide by it the same as health & safety.

If you've a good profitable well established business and can afford to pay it for staff well then ok but if your like a lot of us with 10 or under staff you may as well close the doors or fire them all and offer to take them back as contractors.

If an employee can take 4 weeks sick pay a year, there going to end up sick for 4 week a year along with 20 odd days holidays. This is complete bull**** from a public servant who has no idea what it's like to start, run and manage a small business. Who in the hell does she think small business people hire, teachers?

Someone said it earlier, tidy up your own house first you auld bat and then come and talk to business but in the mean time feck off Joan and help us create jobs not destroy them.

Christ I hate our politicians, burn them all!!!!!

so when this comes in to law employers have to pay sick pay at the moment they are not obliged to?? is that correct.

Nuttzz

If they did bring something like this in I would love if the SME sector employers brought in a VAT & PAYE/PRSI payment strike. Can you imagine if the vast majority of SME's held back a quarters VAT & PAYE/PRSI (say september to december) payment to the state. Joan and co would do a u-turn quicker than you could say IMF.

TheCostumeShop.ie: Ronan

Nuttzz wrote: »

If they did bring something like this in I would love if the SME sector employers brought in a VAT & PAYE/PRSI payment strike.

Employers don't strike because we have no experience of "entitlements", we pay our dues and get on with things. The only person who would suffer is the employer and their staff not the government (and certainly not the civil servants who dreamt up the policy), so we have no interest in the punishments that would be forced upon us or making our staff suffer as a by acting on our political views. If something like this was brought in most of us would shake their hands, simile politely as we have learned to do and leave the country with the jobs and top talent in tow.

This is an absolutely a non runner so it's amazing they announced it at all.

ssbob

drunkmonkey wrote: »

If an employee can take 4 weeks sick pay a year, there going to end up sick for 4 week a year along with 20 odd days holidays. This is complete bull**** from a public servant who has no idea what it's like to start, run and manage a small business. Who in the hell does she think small business people hire, teachers?

I think you are talking b*ll**** here as this proposal is notsaying that an employee can take 4 weeks sick leave a year, it is saying only that the first 4 weeks burden where before had been on the social welfare department is now on the employers, the employees still need to get a sick cert like they would need to do anyway to claim social welfare, the employees would be losing out financially anyway by only getting the equivalent of illness benefit which I think is €188 for a full working week compared to what they are on anyway.

While I do not agree with this proposal, I do believe that Joan Burton is one of the few who is coming up with something new and fresh, since she took charge, they have increased the amount of savings they have made on fraud, she has also introduced a pilot scheme in 3 locations whereby you would have a social welfare card, this will eliminate people claiming Dole in multiple locations and also people claiming dole under someone else's name.

I do agree with the point you make however that until all savings that can be made in-house are made then don't you dare come after our businesses.

HellFireClub

TheCostumeShop.ie: Ronan wrote: »

Employers don't strike because we have no experience of "entitlements", we pay our dues and get on with things. The only person who would suffer is the employer and their staff not the government (and certainly not the civil servants who dreamt up the policy), so we have no interest in the punishments that would be forced upon us or making our staff suffer as a by acting on our political views. If something like this was brought in most of us would shake their hands, simile politely as we have learned to do and leave the country with the jobs and top talent in tow.

This is an absolutely a non runner so it's amazing they announced it at all.

We mightn't have experience of "entitlements", but it certainly makes me furious to see the kind of obstacles that are put in the way of decent entrepreneurship in this country, by a shower of absolute f*cking goons in the public sector and in government who never had to take a risk in their entire working lives. I don't agree for a second that small business people stand back and make these cool calculated kind of decisions, without any emotion being involved, and in any event, when you are trading in the domestic economy, it isn't open to you to just up sticks and transfer your business overseas because you don't like what is happening over here in Ireland, if you are running a small business here in this jurisdiction, and no moreso than if you have financial obligations, you are "pot committed", you can't just up sticks and leave with your staff.

I'm going to keep saying this, the problem here is one of a complete absence of representation for people who are both running small businesses and those who work within small businesses in the private sector and you may forget about the SFA or ISME, they have been so ingratiated in the social partnership frankenstein experiment in this country that they are incapable of representing small businesses and their employees.

What is needed here is organising up and down the country, get a movement together with a view to putting ten or twenty people into the Dail who actually "get" it, while we still have a domestic economy to fight for.

HellFireClub

Another massive part of the problem with sick leave in this country is the medical profession, who will give a sick note for someone having a bad hair day, and there isn't a thing that can be done about that or so it seems to me.

Then one the other side of the coin, I've seen a situation in the past where an absolutely incompetent manager has been the cause of an employees absence, by stressing an employee out to the extent where they were unable to come to work and the only recourse that was available to the employee was to go to their GP who, (rightfully in this case I might add), issued a sick note for 2 weeks for work related stress.

We've all had woeful managers and this country for some reason has a seriously high density of people who smarmed their way into managerial positions without any formal management training or without having any qualifications in this area.

Spacedog

I agree with her 100% these are hard times for everyone and business should pay their fair share, which they are not. Throwing your toys out of the pram every time you get a bill won't achieve anything. You all did very well during the boom time and gave little or nothing to the people whose work you benefited from. under the guise of social partnership.

<Moderator edit: Stop Trolling Spacedog>

Nuttzz

TheCostumeShop.ie: Ronan wrote: »

Employers don't strike because we have no experience of "entitlements", we pay our dues and get on with things. The only person who would suffer is the employer and their staff not the government (and certainly not the civil servants who dreamt up the policy), so we have no interest in the punishments that would be forced upon us or making our staff suffer as a by acting on our political views. If something like this was brought in most of us would shake their hands, simile politely as we have learned to do and leave the country with the jobs and top talent in tow.

This is an absolutely a non runner so it's amazing they announced it at all.

As an employer for 10+ years I am well experienced with lack of "entitlements" however I am sick that the likes of SIPTU can bend the government over the table and get what it wants, while small business like mine (or yours im sure) have no redress if rates go up, minimum wages go up, jlcs go up, vat goes up. We just take it.

If SME's were to withhold payment of tax that we collect on their behalf (unpaid for of course, imagine providing any other service to a business free of charge on a constant basis) without VAT revenue the civil servants might see where their wages come from and imagine the red face on Enda while he tried to explain why he needed extra bail out funds to "our european partners" to make up for a temporary shortfall

anymore

This is an example of the Government withdrawing from the provision of some benefit/service and passing the liability and cost of it on to the private sector but failing to reduce the charges it will continue to make of the employers, ie employers will still have to pay thier portion of PRSI for employees.
It is another abdication of responsibilty which makes one wonder how much loyalty should we have to this ' State/Government.

HellFireClub

anymore wrote: »

This is an example of the Government withdrawing from the provision of some benefit/service and passing the liability and cost of it on to the private sector but failing to reduce the charges it will continue to make of the employers, ie employers will still have to pay thier portion of PRSI for employees.
It is another abdication of responsibilty which makes one wonder how much loyalty should we have to this ' State/Government.

Your dead right, they shift the liability onto someone else, while they conveniently hold onto all the money that was paid for to provide the benefit, because the truth now is that we need that money to pay the bill for bailing out wánkstains who took a bad punt on Anglo and AIB.

This is nothing less than the classic definition of a dysfunctional state, where taxpayers money is collected, but instead of being used to the provide for the people who paid their tax, (to maintain the "common good"), it is used instead to bail out drunken arséholes who took a bad punt on a private sector business.

I hope people start waking up to what is happening to this country and at some juncture, decide to take a stand to the sheer insanity of what this country has now become.

colblimp

drunkmonkey wrote: »

Christ I hate our politicians, burn them all!!!!!

Bad idea - imagine the amount of Sick Pay that would have to be paid out...!

betonit

colblimp wrote: »

Bad idea - imagine the amount of Sick Pay that would have to be paid out...!

They'd get paid while they're out plus get their pension plus some kind of disablity payment plus make an insureance and their spouses would get carers allowance.